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Local voters on Tuesday elected new school board members in Pomona and Claremont, re-elected two governing board members at the Chaffey College district, and approved a utility-tax measure in Pomona.

In Diamond Bar, voters re-elected two incumbent City Council members and elected newcomer Ling-Ling Chang. All incumbent candidates were re-elected Tuesday in races for the governing boards of Mt. San Antonio College, Citrus College, and the Walnut Valley Unified School District.

In perhaps Tuesday’s most surprising result, Jason Rothman, son of Pomona Mayor Elliott Rothman, unseated incumbent Pomona school board member Steve Lustro in a tight three-candidate race for a two-year seat on the PUSD board.

Rothman, a recent graduate from Cal Poly Pomona in his early 20s, received 2,113 votes to Lustro’s 1,984 votes. Nancy A. Matarrita finished third with 1,746 votes.

In the other Pomona Unified school board race for three four-year seats, two incumbents won re-election, and challenger Roberta Perlman unseated incumbent John Avila. Robert Torres, son of former Pomona mayor and current state Assemblywoman Norma Torres, finished in a distant last place among the seven candidates.

Finishing with the most votes was incumbent Andrew Wong, with 3,014 supporting his candidacy. Perlman finished second with 2,897 votes, and incumbent Adrienne Konigar-Macklin finished third with 2,309 votes. In the final four positions were Avila (2,186 votes), Frank Guzman (1,914 votes), Hank Mollet (1,768 votes) and Torres (985 votes).

Pomona voters also passed a utility-tax measure that broadens the city’s telecommunications utility users tax to include new forms of telephone communication, such as cell phones, text messaging, and some Internet phone technology. The tax rate will remain at 9 percent with the passage of Measure PC, which was supported by 59.65 percent of Pomona voters. It needed a majority to pass.

In Claremont, incumbent school board members Mary Caenepeel (3,023 votes) and Steven Llanusa (2,121 votes) won re-election, while newcomer Jeff Stark won a seat on the board with the second-most votes (2,975). Challenger Jeff Hammill finished with the fewest votes (1,855) among the four candidates.

Two incumbent governing board members at the Chaffey Community College District easily fended off three challengers Tuesday. Katie Roberts finished with 12,971 votes and Kathy Brugger received 12,114 votes. Finishing respectively in the third, fourth and fifth positions were Ontario-Montclair school board member Paul Vincent Avila (4,682 votes), Irene Hernandez-Blair (4,609 votes), and Christopher Agrella (2,790 votes).

Two incumbent city councilmembers and a newcomer easily won election in Diamond Bar, where the nearest challenger finished with more than 1,000 votes fewer than the third-place finisher Ling-Ling Chang.

Finishing with the highest number of votes was Steve Tye (3,081 votes), followed in the top three positions by Ron Everett (2,624 votes) and Chang (2,408 votes). In the final four positions among the seven candidates were Robert Velazquez (1,384 votes), David Liu (1,291 votes), Lucy Huang (1,148 votes), and S. Dhand (898 votes).

Winning re-election on Mt. San Antonio College’s governing board were incumbents Judy Chen Haggery (26,403 votes) and David K. Hall (24,538 votes). Challenger John Mendoza finished a distant third in the race with 11,419 votes.

Incumbent candidates from the Citrus College governing board also easily won re-election. Gary Woods finished with 631 votes to challenger Richard James Lugo’s 217 votes in the district’s Area 1 race. In Area 3, incumbent Edward Ortell defeated David Hooper with nearly 73 percent of the vote.

In the race for three seats on the Walnut Valley Unified school board, three incumbents won re-election despite a strong showing by two challengers. Finishing in the top three positions were Nancy A. Lyons (2,972 votes), Helen Hall (2,586 votes) and Cindy M. Ruiz (2,252 votes). Newcomer Anyork Lee finished less than a percentage point behind Ruiz with 2,142 votes. Newcomer Michael West garnered the fewest votes among the five candidates, with 1,365 voters supporting his candidacy.

In a January story on his appointment to the Planning Commission, Daily Bulletin reporter Monica Rodriguez reported that Rothman graduated from Diamond Ranch High School, and was expecting to graduate in June this year from Cal Poly Pomona with a biotechnology degree.

Q: The Pomona Unified School District is facing difficult financial times and will have to make cuts to balance out the 2010-2011 academic year budget. What are do you think should be considered for cuts that has not been considered up to this point?

A: I feel that there are several areas of excess in the school district. First and foremost, I would like to see a moratorium placed on the retention of consultants. The Pomona Unified School District has a vast and valuable employee base that does not require the extraneous expense of consultants. I would also like to see a modification in the funding of programs. I feel that programs that have been proven to be valuable should be enhanced, while programs that have money simply thrown at them, with very little benefit should have funding reduced.

Q: Are you prepared to cut teachers and other certificated personnel in order to balance the district’s budget should it be necessary?

A: I am prepared to comb through the entire budget of the Pomona Unified School District, and examine the cost and benefit that each expense has. I am not prepared, nor do I intend to, lay off scores of teachers and certified employees based on the assumption that it’s the only thing to do. As your new school board member, I will seek out and acquire all available federal, state, local, and award funds for the Pomona Unified School District.